Earlier today, I did a rather extensive post about a particularly ghoulish attempt to exploit the story of a woman with cancer, in this case Christina Applegate. It turns out that Mike Adams isn’t the only woo-meister looking to capitalize on Ms. Applegate’s misfortune, You just knew it had to happen, but Thighmaster, BioidenticalStem Cell Huckster Suzanne Somers has gotten in on the act. Apparently she’s penned an open letter to Applegate that was published in People:

Dear Christina,

Cancer is scary, and lonely. You can’t ask anyone to make decisions for you because it’s just too heavy.

There is a lot of “rush to treatment,” when what you really need is time to research and think about how you want to approach this. Take your time Christina, there is no rush. Take your time and think it through. Use you cancer to learn and grow and as a force to work for you. You might choose to take an alternative approach.

There are more options than the ones presented to you in the oncologist’s office. You will make it. The success and drive you have had in your career will be the same strengths you will use to win over this nasty disease. And I am here if you want to talk to someone who was “there.”

Sincerely,

Suzanne Somers

Gee, you don’t think Somers is trying to muscle in on the action here to get a little spotlight, do you? Call me old-fashioned (although I’m still a good 16 or 17 years younger than Somers), but if she really wanted to offer support and advice to Christina Applegate, there is such a thing as a private letter, e-mail, or even a phone call. I’m sure Applegate’s publicist would have been happy to put Somers in touch with her client. No, this letter is nothing more than a naked grab at publicity. (Come to think of it, why, oh why, did I use the word “naked” in the context of discussing Suzanne Somers? Seeing her naked might have been something I was interested in back in the 1970s when I was a teenager and she was pretty, but those days are long, long gone given what she’s turned into.) In any case, although not as bad as Mike Adams, Suzanne Somers is about the last person you’d want to take medical advice from about breast cancer, given that she eschewed conventional chemotherapy when she had it and that she tells women they should pump themselves full of “bioidentical” estrogens, which is an absolutely awful idea for breast cancer survivors. Next, Somers’ll be shilling her new stem cell service.

Unfortunately, Ms. Applegate is–shall we say?–indisposed and thus unable to respond. She’s too busy recovering from major surgery. But wouldn’t it be cool if there were a response, preferably a snarky, catty response? Fortunately, April Winchell responded for Applegate and even went on to imagine a full exchange. Best line:

I just wish you’d have written to me sooner with some of your scientifically sound alternatives. I could have rubbed crystals on my nipples and douched with rain forest water.

Hilarious. Too bad it’s just an imagined response and not the real thing.

Orac–did you really insult Ms. Somer’s looks? That is a cheap shot and irrelevant. Shame on you. You should simply attack her arguments (and clearly you have a lot of material worthy of vicious attacks, smackdowns and incredible insolence).

Do you get the feeling that some of these people real have quite an extrordinary opinions of thier own opinions? When you have people sticking microphones in your face every so often, I guess you really start to believe that you must have something important to say?

I have been to a few quasi celebrity events and attendances and when you get past the industry white wash presentation of many hollywood celebrities, it really is kind of a seedy background of characters. The old adage that beauty is only skin deep but ugly is to the bone could best describe my impression of the hollywood set when not viewed through a 27 inch color TV.

Use you cancer to learn and grow and as a force to work for you. Gack!

Looking at the creaseless “botox forehead”, the ridges of injected lip collagen, the slanted “one-too-many facelift eyes”, and the fragile overly exfoliated and peeled skin, I can only say, “Suzanne, girlfriend, you might choose to take an alternative approach. Stop all those chemicals and maiming and burning and learn to love yourself.”

Oh well, they don’t sell men’s products using ugly overwieght ladies. Same goes for the da woo I guess.

I would prefer that they confine people like Billy Mays to selling the woo along with Oxyclean and the ONOKI foot pads that remove toxins from the bottom of your feet. I mean come on! You can actually see that stuff work!

Looking at the creaseless “botox forehead”, the ridges of injected lip collagen, the slanted “one-too-many facelift eyes”, and the fragile overly exfoliated and peeled skin, I can only say, “Suzanne, girlfriend, you might choose to take an alternative approach. Stop all those chemicals and maiming and burning and learn to love yourself.”
You forgot the bleached, backcombed hair, the whitened teeth and the ridiculous amount of eye makeup. People like Ms Somers shriek with horror at “chemicals” and ceaselessly parrot the “natural is good” mantra – until it comes to their looks. So criticising her appearance is legitimate; it’s pointing out her hypocrisy.

Let’s review:
1. Botox injections – one of the most potent neurotoxins known to man. Doesn’t she realize she’s injecting toxins!!! 2. Neupogen injections to mobilize stem cells with Neupogen made from E coli, a known component of poop. We all know that injecting poop is bad for you.
3. Injections of collagen derived from cow bone of which eating too much Cow will kill you.
4. Thighmaster made with those evil plastics. Will young girls who use this be able to conceive later in life?
5. All the makeup. Doesn’t she realize all the chemicals that are used in the manufacturing of these products.

Unless you show how deriding S.S.’s looks somehow pertains to her pernicious cluelessness on breast cancer, it seems like an irrelevant cheap shot to point out that a woman who was famous for her looks 25 years ago can now be caught looking bad on camera.

And it seems especially hypocritical right after criticizing another person at length for their irrelevant cheap shot.

I agree that your long parenthesis reeks of objectivation and could easily be interpreted as somewhat misogynistic.
It adds nothing to your argument and may even hurt it, actually. Too bad, since you are fundamentally right !

I have nothing but contempt for SS’s reasoning and for her publicity seeking. However, as a woman who’s almost forty, I am getting somewhat sensitive to the way it somehow seems to be a woman’s own fault if she has the bad taste to get older and less attractive (and there’s nothing funnier in our culture, apparently, in a giggle-and-shudder-inducing way, than pointing out how ICKY YUCKY older women are in even faintly sexual situations! how knee-slappingly hilarious!). I did cringe a bit when I read your comment about what she’s “turned into”. Please, for the sake of those of us who are also in the process of “turning into” icky yucky older women, keep the focus on the stupidity of her arguments.

It’s possible my snarkiness may have gotten the better of me. Perhaps I should have phrased it as “what Somers turned herself into with Botox, plastic surgery, and ‘bioidentical’ hormones,” as that’s much closer to what I meant. Sorry about that.

My point was not meant to be that Somers is older; the point was meant to be what she did to herself in the pursuit of eternal youth that destroyed her formerly good looks and what she continues to tell women to do in the pursuit of the same objective. She could have been a hot 60 year old if she hadn’t done all that. Her aging isn’t the problem as far as I’m concerned. It’s her hopeless quest to keep looking the same as she did at age 25 that’s the problem. Look at Joan Rivers. Give Somers a few years, and that’s what she’ll look like if she keeps it up.

Come on people. These are people that unfortunetly have chosen to make a living based ENTIRELY on looks and presenting a bubbly personality (maybe not fair but…). This particular lady has made a lotta bucks selling crap based entirely on her looks. I would not make a comment about Madeline Albright (sp?) former secretary of state or our current madame secretary as to looks because it is not an issue, however this is part of the uglyness of television business.

Have you seen some of the hollywood males in thier 60’s and seventies lately? Heck Eddie Van Halen looks like a bridge troll and he is likely only in his 40’s?

I think Ms. Somers is still a pretty lady (I’m 50 she’s likely maybe 61-62) however, this particular photo of her is not very flattering, and I have not seen her in a while or at least since her possibly carefully presented TV appearances.

Take note of some of the reconstruction surgury on some of the older ladies and men in hollywood, even some of the younger ones for that matter. The Riddler look around the lip area comes to mind.

Frankly I think some of them would benefit society and help woman and men by writing more in public about something they actually know a lot about; looks and the advancement of age.

It’s not the aging, it’s the double standard: she’s pushing someone to “accept the cancer and learn from it”, and preaching the doctrine of “natural is best”, while using massive amounts of technology to stave off the natural process of aging.

It’s not the aging, it’s the double standard: she’s pushing someone to “accept the cancer and learn from it”, and preaching the doctrine of “natural is best“, while using massive amounts of technology to stave off the natural process of aging.